Pentecost column

All over the country, churches will try to infuse a bit of Pentecost energy into services today. Many will wear red as a symbol of Pentecost fire; some may have different languages heard; some may launch balloons or have recorded tornado sound blast through speakers, and cupcakes may celebrate the “birthday of the church.”  We will sing some hymns of the spirit that will be opened again next year. It can be a dispiriting experience.

Other more charismatically-oriented churches will hear speaking in tongues and see and experience being slain the spirit in religious ecstasy. Envious of the energy in Pentecostal services, some churches attempt to infuse services with a non-stop flow of energetic activity and words for a spiritual high. The Spirit gives purpose and energy. Look what frames Pentecost in the book of Acts: the selection of a new apostle and the work of the church in worship and teaching. The spirit is the center of ordinary life in the church.

In baptism we claim the Gift of the Spirit of Isaiah 11, ones of inspired decision. Pentecost has the capacity to harvest the fruit of the Sprit (Gal. 5:22). The life envisioned by God has these virtues, these powers, th4ese elements of the good life.

Creation-One of our readings is part of Ps. 104 today. In all likelihood it reflects other creation prayers. For me it helps to provide a biblical approach to creation. It gives religious meaning to the environment. In its way it sees entropy as the standard unless god renews the face of the earth, unless the Sprit is there to animate creation. Teilhard de Chardin wrote: “the day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire. “

Every week we pray for the illumination of the spirit when we read the Scripture. Otherwise, they are merely words on a page. The Spirit continues to reveal God’s work in the word as it unfolds in our history. The light of the Spirit allows us to perceive Christ in ourselves and others. In John 16 the spirit of truth is one of continuing processive revelation as we move into the scope and depth of God’s way in the world. That selfsame Spirit is our attorney, our advocate and counselor, our helper, the one who speaks for us when we are unable to defend ourselves. The Spirit helps us to see the dual nature of Jesus Christ.

New life-Another reading today is Ezekiel 37, the famous valley of the dry bones that is captured in the old song. He has a vision of a battlefield of bones, not even a cemetery. The dry bones become reanimated. The spirit gives life to them. In other words, only god can bring new life out of death. What we see as relic can be raw material in the breath of the spirit.

The God of new life hates dullness, the dreary sense of trying to get through life in a rut in a dismal gray sameness. Pentecost has a sense of a spring cleaning, of shaking out the obstacles to the fruit of the spirit/It exorcises the dull drab spirit of complacency and routine and makes room for the spirit “who seizes hold of us but cannot be seized…who gives but cannot be owned (Hans Kung).” The ancient prayer Come Holy Spirit asks the sprit to warm what is cold, to bend what is rigid, to water what is barren, to heal what is wounded, and to give direction when going astray.